Monthly Archives: May 2005

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Last August I thought myself an idiot when I left my wallet in my pants when I did a load of laundry.

(This actually led to a funny situation where I got pulled over, but didn’t have my registration to give to the officer, so I got a citation for “failure to hand over registration”, and y’know? I don’t think I got a replacement registration card…)

Today, I think of myself more of an idiot. See, I stopped to take the wallet out of my shorts before I threw the shorts in the laundry hamper. Then, pulling the clothes out of the washer I realized that … I left my cell phone in my shorts.

Damn I’m fucking brilliant.

Anyone have any experience with washed out cell phones? I mean, I know I’m going to go to the Cingular store first thing tomorrow and get a new phone, but can the chip that I have all of my phone numbers stores on be saved?

(Its pretty cool seeing all the water bubbles float around behind the display, though).

… when I got home from work and found a note on the building door that informed me maintenance will be inspecting the fire detector, or the furnace, or something, either tomorrow or Wednesday. Crickey, I need to clean!

I had actually sort of been hoping that “Deep Throat” really had been Pat Buchannan …

Mystery solved: Former FBI official W. Mark Felt stepped forward Tuesday as Deep Throat, the secret Washington Post source that helped bring down President Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Within hours, the paper ratified his claim.

“It’s the last secret” of the story, said Ben Bradlee, the paper’s top editor at the time the riveting political drama played out three decades ago.

It tumbled out in stages during the day â€” first when a lawyer quoted Felt in a magazine article as having said he was the source; then when the former FBI man’s family issued a statement hailing him as a “great American hero,” and finally when the Post posted a story on its Web site confirming him as the secret leaker of long ago.

“The family believes that my grandfather, Mark Felt Sr., is a great American hero who went well above and beyond the call of duty at much risk to himself to save his country from a horrible injustice,” a family statement read by grandson Nick Jones said. “We all sincerely hope the country will see him this way as well.”

My friend Emily had never seen Fight Club. It is, I think, a great movie that works on a variety of levels, but the underlying theme — ridding oneself of material goods — is probably the one that lands the heaviest impact. Of course, it’s also fun to snicker at Bob’s manboobs.

So, anyway, she’d never seen the movie. She was living in Arlington when I was living in Towson, and every now and then she would get up here, or I would get down there, but never ever could the time be found to watch Fight Club. Never.

About a year and a half ago she was off to Europe for a year, six months in Dublin followed by six months in London. Or vice-versa, I can’t remember. Anyway, so she was leaving in late December, and her folks threw a “going away” party. So I was out at Barnes & Noble late the night before, racking my brain, trying to figure out what to get her. I wanted to get her a book, because, really, books are great for travel — you don’t need a DVD player to watch them, you just need an eyeball (or two?).

And it occured to me to buy her a copy of Fight Club. Of course, I couldn’t think of the author’s name, so I did what any reasonably intelligent individual would do … I scanned each row of the fiction section, shelf by shelf, until I located it.*

I read the book that night, then wrapped it and gave it to her. She eventually read it, and liked it so much she did watch the movie, like a year later.

Anyway, Chuck Palahniuk has a new book coming out, which is why I thought of this, although this one sounds even more disturbing than Fight Club …

The decidedly disturbing Haunted is about a group of frustrated misfits who sign up for a three-month writing retreat. It descends into violence and sabotage as the writers, locked in an old theater, deprive themselves of food, phones and electricity, start chopping off their fingers and toes and then resort to cannibalism.

… I’m going to go and scratch “Writing Retreat” off of the list of things I might like to do some day …

* Actually, I went into the DVD/Music section, found the DVD, and looked on the back cover until I found the “Based on the book by…” credit.

Today I missed my Japanese class again, since I have gotten a bad throat. I only went to the class once this week, so I am probably so far behind now. I will catch up in the summer tho so no worries hehe. Anyway today has been weird, at 3 some guy ringed the bell. I went down and recognized it was my sister’s former boyfriend. He told me he wants to get his fishing poles back. I told him to wait downstair while I get them for him. While I was searching them, he is already in the house. He is still here right now, smoking, walking all around the house with his shoes on which btw I just washed the floor 2 days ago! Hopefully he will leave soon, oh yeah working on the jap report as we speak!

You add a whole new meaning to self-assurance.
You are a nurturing person with great physical strength.
Like many Leos, you will see that your mission for good is completed.
You are very optimistic about the future.

DeLay wrote NBC to complain that one of the characters on Law & Order: Criminal Intent invoked his name in a story line about the shooting death of a federal judge. “Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt,” the fictional police officer said.

DeLay, in a letter to NBC Universal Television chief Jeff Zucker, called that reference a “slur.”

“This manipulation of my name and trivialization of the sensitive issue of judicial security represents a reckless disregard for the suffering initiated by recent tragedies and a great disservice to public discourse,” he said.

DeLay, R-Texas, criticized the federal judiciary after the courts refused to stop the death of Terri Schiavo. “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior,” he said in a statement on March 31, hours after Schiavo died.

DeLay apologized the next week, saying he had spoken in an “inartful” way and meant that Congress should increase its oversight of the courts.

“This isolated piece of gritty ‘cop talk’ was neither a political comment nor an accusation,” NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly said. “It’s not unusual for L & O to mention real names in its fictional stories. We’re confident in our viewers’ ability to distinguish between the two.”

Creator/executive producer Dick Wolf added: “But I do congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a television show.”

Seriously, don’t get yourself elected to office if you can’t take some jibes. And if you don’t like jibes of this sort, don’t stay stupid shit like the stuff you did after the Scihavo case, Mr. DeLay! You’ve got no one to blame … but yourself.

I don’t actually know that I blew the interview, but I think that its a bad sign that I met with the UPS recruiter at 9:15 and still got home by ten. Did I, uh, mention that I live in Timonium and the interview was at Arundel Mills?

I really wish I’d had the other guy — I could hear him behind me, and he was asking his interviewee good questions that if I’d been asked I could have given good answers for.

Instead, after perhaps sounding overconfident, my recruiter at one point said, “You don’t actually think this is like delivering pizzas, do you?”

The interview itself lasted — I don’t know — five minutes? She spent a lot of time looking at my application, asking me questions such as “How many hours a week do you work? Do you know how to drive a standard transmission? Ever driven a big truck? Do you know you’ll have to work in the elem – well, you deliver pizzas, so I guess you do that already.”

Plus, I’d forgotten all of the questions I wanted to ask her about the job — the one I’d remembered she’d already answered in her opening bit — so I left feeling that the impression I’d given was unprepared and unqualified.

I was told that no job offers would be made until the background checks are completed, and that those take one and a half to two weeks. So, maybe I’ll have some good news in one and a half to two weeks. For now, I just wish I could go back in time an hour and get my interview with the other guy.

In Good News: this red tie looks effin’ sharp.

(Before the interview I used the men’s room at the food court and took advantage of the scale to weigh myself. Cripes! I’ve gained twenty-five pounds since the last time I weighed myself. It’s a water and rice-cake diet for me.)

There are two reasons I say that. The first is that the knot doesn’t look bloated. The second is that I was able to slide the knot.

And no, don’t freak, I’m not wearing that shirt to the interview — not even sure if I’m wearing that tie! I’m thinking of going with the red tie — I certainly can’t go with the cool patterned tie because I don’t have brown pants … or, apparently, fashion sense.

From The Washington Post (although I actually heard it on Josh Spiegel’s newcast on 105.7 this afternoon):

An 86-year-old woman was jailed after police said she called 911 dispatchers 20 times in a little more than a half-hour — all to complain that a pizza parlor wouldn’t deliver.

Dorothy Densmore was charged with misusing the 911 system, a jail spokeswoman said.

She told dispatchers Sunday that a local pizza shop refused to deliver a pie to her south Charlotte apartment, said Officer Mandy Giannini. She also complained that someone at the shop called her a “crazy old coot,” Giannini said.

Densmore wanted them arrested. Instead, police came to arrest her, and she resisted, Giannini said.

It’s unusual for someone to face charges for nonemergency calls, Giannini said. But on Sunday, Densmore kept calling 911, even after she was told to stop, Giannini said.

When an officer arrived at her apartment, the 5-foot-tall, 98-pound woman attacked him, Giannini said. Densmore scratched him, kicked and bit his hand, she said.

Densmore also is charged with resisting a public officer and two counts of misusing the 911 system, jail records show.

Pizza delivery is a privilege, not a right. And when you call police dispatch twenty-times, “crazy coot” seems an apt description.

I went to Sears today, per this dude’s advice, and got — not one! — two ties. I did, I will admit, contemplate purchasing a clip-on (but didn’t!)

I was advised to only purchase solid colored ties, but, I really liked the pattern on the tie on the upper tie (plus, while some had more subtle patterns, none were pattern free). Which one to wear … decisions, decisions …

(I also left my pants and shirt at the drycleaners next to the indy pizza shop. The woman said, “Friday okay?” I said, “I’ll be here for them Wednesday at four.” She said, “For you … okay. How much starch you want?” “…?”)